"Chūsotsu": Ebichū no Ike Ike Best and "Chūkara": Ebichū no Waku Waku Best are two best-of albums by the Japanese girl idol groupShiritsu Ebisu Chugaku. They were released in Japan simultaneously on November 16, 2016.[1] This marks the final release featuring Rina Matsuno, who died on February 8, 2017.

"Chūsotsu": Ebichū no Ike Ike Best (「中卒」〜エビ中のイケイケベスト〜) contains all the band's major-label hits to date (all the A-sides of the first ten major-label singles), one B-side and one album track. Some songs were re-recorded with the current line-up.

The album contains songs of different genres, such as heavy metal, melocore and electro. The Japan-based music website CDJournal in its review of the album states that the album does well in both showing the band's individually and reflecting its musical career. The site also notes the musicality of the songs and how the lyrics make use of each member's individuality.[2]

"Chūkara": Ebichū no Waku Waku Best (「中辛」〜エビ中のワクワクベスト〜) contains selected major-labelB-sides and album tracks. Some songs were re-recorded with the current line-up. There is also one new song, titled "Sudden Death".

1.
Japanese idol
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In Japanese pop culture idol is a term typically used to refer to young manufactured stars/starlets marketed to be admired for their cuteness. Idols are intended to be role models and they are supposed to maintain a good public image and be good examples for young people. Idols aim to play a range of roles as media personalities, e. g. pop singers, panelists of variety programs, bit-part actors, models for magazines. Their songs typically do not require great singing skills, their popular appeal comes largely from the attractiveness of their public image, Idols are often not considered serious musicians or serious actors. Consequently, many young stars now reject the label in their desire to be seen as professionals rather than as objects of fanatical devotion. The biggest annual idol concert festival is the Tokyo Idol Festival held since 2010, more than 300 idol groups, about 1500 idols performed and attracted about 80,000 spectators in 2016. Whether a person is categorized as an idol depends on how he or she got into the entertainment business, some entertainment companies and music projects specialize in idols, and they automatically market everyone they sign as an idol. Such idol music projects have their own steady following, i. e. idol fans who prefer the style of one particular project they support, but bigger companies can choose, for example, not to refer to a new pop group they create as an idol group. As a result, there are some groups and boy bands with practically the same kind of fan following that are not idols according to their official profiles. The term came to be applied to any cute actress or female singer, teenage girls, mostly between 14 and 16, and teenage males, mostly between 15 and 18, began rising to stardom. One in particular, Momoe Yamaguchi, was a star until her marriage. Idols dominated the pop scene in the 1980s, and this period is known as the Golden Age of Idols in Japan. In a single year, as many as 40 or 50 new idols could appear, a few idols from that era, such as Seiko Matsuda, are still popular. At the same time, the popularity of male Japanese idols, such as SMAP, Kinki Kids, Tokio and they gained high popularity in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Initially the term arose to describe very young newly emerging female singers who were noted for their innocence and freshness. A diversification occurred in the 1990s and instead of few idols vying for popularity, in the mid-1990s, idols became much younger than before, and groups of idols like Speed and Morning Musume became prominent. Idols also became a fixture in anime by singing opening or ending songs that have little relevance to the anime itself. Some experimented with being voice actors, and so voice actors themselves became somewhat like idols, even today, some are still involved with the video game industry, though they are not always entirely successful

2.
J-pop
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J-pop, natively also known simply as pops, is a musical genre that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. J-pop was further defined by new groups in the late 1970s, particularly electronic synthpop band Yellow Magic Orchestra. Eventually, J-pop replaced kayōkyoku in the Japanese music scene, the term was coined by the Japanese media to distinguish Japanese music from foreign music, and now refers to most Japanese popular music. The origin of modern J-pop is said to be Japanese-language rock music inspired by the likes of The Beatles, unlike the Japanese music genre called kayōkyoku, J-pop uses a special kind of pronunciation, which is similar to that of English. One notable singer to do so is Keisuke Kuwata, who pronounced the Japanese word karada as kyerada, additionally, unlike Western music, the major second was usually not used in Japanese music, except art music, before rock music became popular in Japan. At first, the term J-pop was used only for Western-style musicians in Japan, such as Pizzicato Five and Flippers Guitar, on the other hand, Mitsuhiro Hidaka of AAA from Avex Trax said that J-pop was originally derived from the Eurobeat genre. However, the became a blanket term, covering other music genres—such as the majority of Japanese rock music of the 1990s. O. A. Because the band did not want to perform J-pop music, their album featured the 1980s Pop of MTV, according to his fellow band member Toru Hidaka, the 1990s music that influenced him was not listened to by fans of other music in Japan at that time. Hide of Greeeen openly described their genre as J-pop. He said, I also love rock, hip hop and breakbeats, for example, hip hop musicians learn the culture of hip hop when they begin their career. We are not like those musicians and we love the music as very much. Those professional people may say What are you doing, but I think that our musical style is cool after all. By the Taishō period, Western musical techniques and instruments, which had introduced to Japan in the Meiji period, were widely used. Influenced by Western genres such as jazz and blues, ryūkōka incorporated Western instruments such as the violin, harmonica, however, the melodies were often written according to the traditional Japanese pentatonic scale. In the 1930s, Ichiro Fujiyama released popular songs with his tenor voice, Fujiyama sang songs with a lower volume than opera through the microphone. Jazz musician Ryoichi Hattori attempted to produce Japanese native music which had a flavor of blues and he composed Noriko Awayas hit song Wakare no Blues. Awaya became a popular singer and was called Queen of Blues in Japan. Due to pressure from the Imperial Army during the war, the performance of music was temporarily halted in Japan

3.
Heavy metal music
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Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the United Kingdom and the United States. Heavy metal lyrics and performance styles are associated with aggression. The first heavy metal such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath. During the mid-1970s, Judas Priest helped spur the evolution by discarding much of its blues influence, Motörhead introduced a punk rock sensibility. Beginning in the late 1970s, bands in the new wave of British heavy metal such as Iron Maiden, before the end of the decade, heavy metal fans became known as metalheads or headbangers. During the 1980s, glam metal became popular with such as Mötley Crüe. Since the mid-1990s popular styles have further expanded the definition of the genre and these include groove metal and nu metal, the latter of which often incorporates elements of grunge and hip hop. Heavy metal is characterized by loud distorted guitars, emphatic rhythms, dense bass-and-drum sound. Metal subgenres variously emphasize, alter, or omit one or more of these attributes, the typical band lineup includes a drummer, a bassist, a rhythm guitarist, a lead guitarist, and a singer, who may or may not be an instrumentalist. Keyboard instruments are used to enhance the fullness of the sound. Deep Purples Jon Lord played an overdriven Hammond organ, in 1970, John Paul Jones used a Moog synthesizer on Led Zeppelin III, by the 1990s, in. almost every subgenre of heavy metal synthesizers were used. The electric guitar and the power that it projects through amplification has historically been the key element in heavy metal. The heavy metal guitar sound comes from a use of high volumes. Guitar solos are an element of the heavy metal code. That underscores the significance of the guitar to the genre, most heavy metal songs featur at least one guitar solo, which is a primary means through which the heavy metal performer expresses virtuosity. One exception is nu metal bands, which tend to omit guitar solos, with rhythm guitar parts, the heavy crunch sound in heavy metal. Palm muting the strings with the hand and using distortion. Palm muting creates a tighter, more sound and it emphasizes the low end

4.
Sony Music Entertainment Japan
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Sony Music Entertainment Inc. often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short, is Sonys music arm in Japan. SMEJ is directly owned by Sony Corporation and independent from the United States-based Sony Music Entertainment due to its strength in the Japanese music industry. It was prominent in the early to mid 90s producing and licensing music for such as Roujin Z from acclaimed manga artist Katsuhiro Otomo. Until March 2007, Sony Music Japan also had its own North American sublabel, releases of Sony Music Japan now appear on Columbia Records and/or Epic Records in North America. The Columbia name and trademark is controlled by Nippon Columbia, which was, in fact, the company was incorporated as CBS/Sony Records and with Sony co-founder Akio Morita as president. Norio Ohga was part of the management team from the formation of the company and served as president, in 1972, when CBS/Sony was generating robust profits, Ohga was named chairman and at the same time gained further responsibility and influence within Sony. He would continue to work for the company one morning a week. In 1980 Toshio Ozawa succeeded Ohga as president, in 1983 the company was renamed CBS/Sony Group. In January 1988, after more than a year of negotiations, Sony acquired CBS Records, in March 1988, four wholly owned subsidiaries were folded into CBS/Sony Group, CBS/Sony Inc. CBS/Sony Records Inc. and Sony Video Software International, the company was renamed Sony Music Entertainment, Inc. Shugo Matsuo was named new president in January 1992, replacing Toshio Ozawa, overall sales for the fiscal year ending March 31,1991 were 83.8 billion yen with a pretax profit of 9.2 billion yen. In June 1996, Ryokichi Kunugi became new president, Shigeo Maruyama was appointed to the new post of CEO on October 1,1997 and replaced Kunugi as president in February 1998. As of 2007, Naoki Kitagawa is the current CEO of the group, the companys leading role on the Japanese market was increasingly challenged by labels such as Avex. Net sales for the year ending March 31,1997 were down 10% to 103 billion yen. The market share at that time was less than 18%, in August 1997, Dreams Come True, until that point Sony Music Entertainment Japans best-selling act, signed a worldwide multi-album deal with competing U. S. label Virgin Records America. Since then it was said that SMEJ ceded to Avexs challenge, SMEJ netted 22.4 billion yen for 1H2012 and 14. 3% of the market, second behind Avex. Aniplex Antinos Records was launched in 1994 with Sony Music director Shigeo Maruyama as its president, the first releases on August 21 were a mini-album by indie group Confusion and singles by the groups Aniss, Neverending Story, and Ginji Itoh. Ariola Japan BMG Music Japan DefSTAR Records - founded in 1997 as a Warner Music sub label, SME Records Sony Music Records Sony Records gr8

5.
Pop music
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Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form in the United States and United Kingdom during the mid 1950s. The terms popular music and pop music are used interchangeably, although the former describes all music that is popular. Pop and rock were synonymous terms until the late 1960s, when they were used in opposition from each other. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music. Pop music is eclectic, and often borrows elements from other such as urban, dance, rock, Latin. Identifying factors include generally short to medium-length songs written in a format, as well as the common use of repeated choruses, melodic tunes. David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop music as a body of music which is distinguishable from popular, jazz, according to Pete Seeger, pop music is professional music which draws upon both folk music and fine arts music. Although pop music is seen as just the singles charts, it is not the sum of all chart music, the music charts contain songs from a variety of sources, including classical, jazz, rock, and novelty songs. Pop music, as a genre, is seen as existing and developing separately, pop music continuously evolves along with the terms definition. The term pop song was first recorded as being used in 1926, Hatch and Millward indicate that many events in the history of recording in the 1920s can be seen as the birth of the modern pop music industry, including in country, blues and hillbilly music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that while pops earlier meaning meant concerts appealing to a wide audience. Since the late 1950s, however, pop has had the meaning of non-classical mus, usually in the form of songs, performed by such artists as the Beatles. Grove Music Online also states that, in the early 1960s pop music competed terminologically with beat music, while in the USA its coverage overlapped with that of rock and roll. From about 1967, the term was used in opposition to the term rock music. Whereas rock aspired to authenticity and an expansion of the possibilities of music, pop was more commercial, ephemeral. It is not driven by any significant ambition except profit and commercial reward, and, in musical terms, it is essentially conservative. It is, provided from on high rather than being made from below, pop is not a do-it-yourself music but is professionally produced and packaged. The beat and the melodies tend to be simple, with limited harmonic accompaniment, the lyrics of modern pop songs typically focus on simple themes – often love and romantic relationships – although there are notable exceptions

6.
Single (music)
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In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record, an album or an EP record. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats, in most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. Typically, these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular, in other cases a recording released as a single may not appear on an album. As digital downloading and audio streaming have become prevalent, it is often possible for every track on an album to also be available separately. Nevertheless, the concept of a single for an album has been retained as an identification of a heavily promoted or more popular song within an album collection. Despite being referred to as a single, singles can include up to as many as three tracks on them. The biggest digital music distributor, iTunes, accepts as many as three tracks less than ten minutes each as a single, as well as popular music player Spotify also following in this trend. Any more than three tracks on a release or longer than thirty minutes in total running time is either an Extended Play or if over six tracks long. The basic specifications of the single were made in the late 19th century. Gramophone discs were manufactured with a range of speeds and in several sizes. By about 1910, however, the 10-inch,78 rpm shellac disc had become the most commonly used format, the inherent technical limitations of the gramophone disc defined the standard format for commercial recordings in the early 20th century.26 rpm. With these factors applied to the 10-inch format, songwriters and performers increasingly tailored their output to fit the new medium, the breakthrough came with Bob Dylans Like a Rolling Stone. Singles have been issued in various formats, including 7-inch, 10-inch, other, less common, formats include singles on digital compact cassette, DVD, and LD, as well as many non-standard sizes of vinyl disc. Some artist release singles on records, a more common in musical subcultures. The most common form of the single is the 45 or 7-inch. The names are derived from its speed,45 rpm. The 7-inch 45 rpm record was released 31 March 1949 by RCA Victor as a smaller, more durable, the first 45 rpm records were monaural, with recordings on both sides of the disc. As stereo recordings became popular in the 1960s, almost all 45 rpm records were produced in stereo by the early 1970s

7.
A-side and B-side
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The terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 78,45, and 33 1/3 rpm phonograph records, whether singles, extended plays, or long-playing records. Creedence Clearwater Revival had hits with both A-side and B-side releases, others took the opposite approach, producer Phil Spector was in the habit of filling B-sides with on-the-spot instrumentals that no one would confuse with the A-side. With this practice, Spector was assured that airplay was focused on the side he wanted to be the hit side, the earliest 10-inch,78 rpm, shellac records were single sided. Double-sided recordings, with one song on side, were introduced in Europe by Columbia Records. There were no record charts until the 1930s, and radio stations did not play recorded music until the 1950s, in this time, A-sides and B-sides existed, but neither side was considered more important, the side did not convey anything about the content of the record. The term single came into use with the advent of vinyl records in the early 1950s. At first, most record labels would randomly assign which song would be an A-side, under this random system, many artists had so-called double-sided hits, where both songs on a record made one of the national sales charts, or would be featured on jukeboxes in public places. As time wore on, however, the convention for assigning songs to sides of the record changed. By the early sixties, the song on the A-side was the song that the company wanted radio stations to play. It was not until 1968, for instance, that the production of albums on a unit basis finally surpassed that of singles in the United Kingdom. In the late 1960s stereo versions of pop and rock songs began to appear on 45s. The majority of the 45s were played on AM radio stations, by the early 1970s, double-sided hits had become rare. Album sales had increased, and B-sides had become the side of the record where non-album, non-radio-friendly, with the advent of cassette and compact disc singles in the late 1980s, the A-side/B-side differentiation became much less meaningful. With the decline of cassette singles in the 1990s, the A-side/B-side dichotomy became virtually extinct, as the dominant medium. However, the term B-side is still used to refer to the tracks or coupling tracks on a CD single. With the advent of downloading music via the Internet, sales of CD singles and other media have declined. B-side songs may be released on the record as a single to provide extra value for money. There are several types of material released in this way, including a different version, or, in a concept record

8.
Electro (music)
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Electro is a genre of electronic music and early hip hop directly influenced by the use of the Roland TR-808 drum machines, and funk. This is the distinction between electro and previously prominent genres such as disco, in which the electronic sound was only part of the instrumentation. It also palpably deviates from its predecessor boogie for being less vocal-oriented, following the decline of disco music in the United States, electro emerged as a fusion of funk and New York boogie. Early hip hop and rap combined with German and Japanese electropop influences such as Kraftwerk, Planet Rock was followed later that year by another breakthrough electro record, Nunk by Warp 9. In 1983, Hashim created an electro funk sound which influenced Herbie Hancock, the early 1980s were electros mainstream peak. By the mid 1980s, the genre moved away from its electronic and funk influences, using harder edged beats and rock samples, Electro became popular again in the late 1990s with artists such as Anthony Rother and DJs such as Dave Clarke. A third wave of popularity occurred in 2007, Electro has branched out into subgenres, including Electrocore and Skweee, which developed in Sweden and Finland. From its inception, one of the characteristics of the electro sound was the use of drum machines, particularly the Roland TR-808. As the genre evolved, computers and sampling replaced drum machines in electronic music and it is important to note, that although the electro of the 1980s and contemporary electro both grew out of the dissolution of disco, they are now different genres. Classic electro drum patterns tend to be electronic emulations of breakbeats, with a kick drum. The difference between electro drumbeats and breakbeats is that electro tends to be mechanical, while breakbeats tend to have more of a human-like feel. The definition however is somewhat ambiguous in nature due to the uses of the term. The Roland TR-808 drum machine hit the market in 1980, defining early electro with its immediately recognizable sound, staccato, percussive drumbeats tended to dominate electro, almost exclusively provided by the TR-808. As an inexpensive way of producing a sound, the TR-808 caught on quickly with the producers of early electro because of the ability of its bass drum to generate extreme low-frequencies. This aspect of the Roland TR-808 was especially appealing to producers who would test drive their tracks in nightclubs and its unique percussion sounds like handclaps, open and closed high-hat, clave and cowbell became integral to the electro sound. A number of songs in the early 1980s employed the TR-808, including Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing, ” Cybotron’s “Clear, ” and Afrika Bambaataa’s “Planet Rock. ”The Roland TR-808 has attained iconic status. Through the use of samples, the Roland TR-808 remains popular in electro, most electro is instrumental, but a common element is vocals processed through a vocoder. Additionally, speech synthesis may be used to create robotic or mechanical lyrical content, as in the iconic Planet Rock, although primarily instrumental, early electro utilized rap